Puad wants update on judge Nazlan's probe

 

Umno supreme council member Mohd Puad Zarkashi has urged Putrajaya to expedite the investigation against Court of Appeal judge Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali.

Puad said the MACC has long completed its investigation and the public was still waiting for the attorney-general to decide on the matter.

"Moreover, the investigation papers were (allegedly) leaked. No one (from the government) denied its authenticity. This is not normal.

"When (the government) is silent... and there's no prosecution then that is judicial interference," he added.

The lack of updates on the probe against Nazlan (above), said Puad, was among the reasons why there are people who assume that the trials against Umno president Ahmad Zahid Hamidi and his predecessor Najib Abdul Razak involved selective prosecution.

Umno supreme council member Mohd Puad Zarkashi

"We hope the new government will expedite the prosecution of judge Nazlan," he said.

Puad is also the Rengit assemblyperson and speaker of the Johor legislative assembly.

Najib sentenced to 12 years’ jail

In 2020, Nazlan, as a High Court judge, sentenced Najib to 12 years in jail and fined him RM210 million for corruption, criminal breach of trust and money laundering.

The Court of Appeal and later the Federal Court upheld the conviction. Najib began serving his jail sentence on Aug 23 after exhausting his appeal options.

At the Federal Court level, Najib's lawyers tried to submit evidence to suggest that Nazlan had a conflict of interest in hearing the case.

The Federal Court bench led by Chief Justice Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat dismissed the application on the grounds that the evidence proposed by the defence was not related to the charges against Najib.

The judges also ruled that there was nothing to suggest that Nazlan convicted Najib based on anything other than the evidence presented during the trial in 2019. - Mkini